Passenger and crew cabines in ships nowadays often are module adapted, which is a prerequisite for a rational production and for having the possibility to use prefabricated room elements.
The most common type of prefabricated room elements, which have been used hitherto, are so called volume units, i.e. containers, comprising a complete cabin with shower and toilet room, and which volume unit has walls and roof, and with or without a floor. Such a construction requires a very high deck level and is, because of its volume and weight, very difficult to handle in narrow decks and they therefore commonly have to be mounted during building of the ship's hull. During this stage of building, the volume units however are obstructing the work. The volume units during their period of assembly, furthermore are exposed to mechanical damage and weather and winds and therefore have to be protected in a proper way. The volume units furthermore have to be dimensioned thus that they can be transported in a safe way without damages. This results in a higher weight per unit, which means that the volume units will be more expensive than rooms which are site-builded in spite of the time saved during assembly.
Hitherto known site-built room elements must have attachments for the wall members welded to the upper and the lower decks, and the roof of the room element is hung like a false ceiling in the upper deck. Usually, the room elements are built like frameworks, which frames are insulated and filled by panels, but also prefabricated wall elements can occur. This building method requires a lot of work and time. Furthermore, the wire laying for heat, water, ventilation, electricity, telephone etcetera, remains.
OBJECT AND MOST ESSENTIAL FEATURE OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to provide a room element, which can make use of the advantages gained with known systems, i.e. prefabricated elements and the volume units, but which does not show their disadvantages. The room elements thus shall be possible to be built from prefabricated members, which are easy to handle and assemble, which room elements shall be selfsupporting relative to the upper deck of the ship, the bulkheads, shall plating, etcetera, and they shall be designed and adapted thus that the supply means for the media necessary for the room elements are included in the members. This has been obtained thereby that the wall elements in the upper part are interconnected by means of groove-formed connecting sections designed straight, L- or T-shaped and intended to enclose the upper part of the wall elements for keeping the separate members together in the longitudinal direction of the walls and also at corner and wall connections, that the roof of the room element is divided into at least three sections, where the middle section and every second section, respectively, are beams extending from one wall element to another, which beam is designed on one hand as a support for ribbed plate ceilings arranged transversely to the beam, and having their opposite ends supported on said connecting sections, and on the other hand as carriers for supply means for the room element, such as channels, conduits, tubes and the like.